


How The World Ends

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/F, Mad Max AU, Post-Apocalypse, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7381576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The apocalypse happened, which is a bummer. Even worse news is that the resources of the Earth are shriveling up more and more each day. With her homeland no longer sustainable, Rangiku is tasked with dragging her motley crew of survivors across the endless desert and around bloodthirsty bandits. A lot of car chases happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ghost

They don’t believe her when they say the air tastes different out here. Rangiku supposes it’s hard to imagine a different kind of air than the one you’ve ever known, just as she forever can’t accept the air here as really being her air. Her reality. Her world.

In the swamps the air was wet all the time. So heavy with moisture there almost was no difference between the dew upon skin and the sweat seeping from underneath it. It was one, cohesive coating like mucus on a salamander or the slime over fish’s scales back when they could fish. None of them have ever seen a fish, either.

Here the air is still hot, but it is acrid and sour. It’s the driest thing Rangiku has ever known, and she is thirsty all the time. Everything under the sun burns her fingers, they constantly feel red and raw from touching hot metal and hot sand and hot everything. She stares at them in her lap, palms a fleshy and pulsating pink, and wills them to become as hard and calloused as animal paws. That her curled toes that used to clinging to stilts over the murky bog will become quick and pointed like a lizard. That her warm blood will run cold, also like a lizard, maybe stop feeling like it’s trying to boil her over from the inside out for once.  
  


* * *

 

Rangiku would say it’s not a large vehicle they have, though that’s only because she’s seen larger. It’s more than serviceable to four people, and that does them just fine. She thinks about the weight and the height of it when she gets to sit in the driver’s seat. She’s never controlled something so big and powerful before. She’s also never been in a greater position to kill her other three passengers on accident. Rangiku is still learning how to drive, but she finds she’s becoming adept.

Usually it’s the man that drives, and as a rule Rangiku doesn’t like men but she tolerates this one. His hair is gray, almost black when it’s damp with sweat, which is always. And he looks at her in the same way he looks at the road- distant and focused all at once. Like he’s seeing through her.

Rangiku would be concerned to have someone like that driving, but he hasn’t manages to crash them yet.

Izuru and the girl usually sit in the back. Izuru sits huddled in the corner, looking pensive. Rangiku catches, occasionally, a blue eye under a fringe of matted gold, that reassures her that he is still with them. His bony hands sport raw knuckles and long, dirty nails, usually from picking apart other machines for the man. When they stop to check out some ruined site, a shambling building or an abandoned car, Rangiku and Izuru will go out and pull it apart for anything useful. It’s rare they find anything useful.

And then there’s the girl, Orihime, who Rangiku likes a lot. She doesn’t seem to mind that Izuru avoids her. She sits with her filthy shawl wrapped around her shoulders and over her head of long and matted orange hair that has nearly been bleached by the sun. Orihime catches Rangiku looking at her, peering behind from the passenger seat, and gives her a lovely and encouraging smile. Her round cheek is stained with a gruesome gash cutting it diagonally and dragging over the lip.

Rangiku returns it without thinking, an instinctual ‘everything is fine.’ The man has been driving them since sunrise, and the Sun has crawled two-thirds of the way across the sky, all the while glaring harshly like the light hitting a gold coin or a rearview mirror. Rangiku has seen more rearview mirrors than she has gold coins. She thinks that by this point in their travels, she’s seen more cars than she’s seen anything else.

Rangiku turns back to look out the windshield again. The plow fixed on their hood peels away mile after mile of sand so more of it ends up behind them rather than on their windows, corroding the glass. The man says nothing, which is very normal of him, but Rangiku notices his lips look chapped as if he’s been chewing on them. He’s getting nervous and tired and he’ll need to take a break from driving soon, and she’ll take over until nightfall.

Staring at the endless desert, Rangiku’s fingers adjust the threadbare scarf away from her throat, as if that will bring her more air, and as if the air won’t be wrong.

 

* * *

 

It’s not as difficult as you might think, finding food or even water out here. Sure, it’s dangerous, and Rangiku is not about to go hog wild or even hog slightly-careless with their resources. The back of the truck is weighed down by a tank that sloshes thickly with liquid. It was one of the few artifacts Rangiku and Izuru were able to bring with them from the swamp, back when all they had was their cramped little skeleton of a car. The rest of their artifacts are what they trade away to keep it from being empty. No, that’s not the hardest part. Though Rangiku still worries.

The hardest part is to keep moving. As quickly as they run through water, their four-person party, they run through gasoline faster. And above all else, they must keep moving.

Back when it was just her and Izuru, and they hadn’t yet encountered the man and his van or the girl, Rangiku just barely squeezed them through scavenger territory. That’s what Rangiku calls those people- hunters, she guesses, would be more fit. The Rock Riders, the Buzzards, and the War Boys. If Rangiku and Izuru pick apart every ruined and broken down vehicle they can find, she can bet blood to bullets that one of those groups are the people who put it there.

Well, anything that didn’t starve or die of dehydration, anyways. Or freeze in the frigid desert nighttime.

So, Rangiku supposes, they only kill what the world doesn’t kill first.

 

* * *

 

Rangiku has to remind herself to keep her eyes on the ground. Between the bright orange desert and the wide, blue sky, her vision sometimes drifts up towards the latter. At the emptiest, vastest space of the two empty, vast spaces. As if she could drive up and into the sky, away from the rotting earth. She squints into the red sand and keeps her eyes on the ground. They’re approaching a canyon, and Rangiku plans to drive through it for as long as it will take her.

Even from a distance she can tell the car isn’t abandoned- Rangiku knows a thing about abandoned cars. She knows the way rust eats them like a fungus, the way they slouch in the sand. She knows the taste of them, like burnt rubber and dry bones.

This car is still very much operative, for lack of a better word. It’s outer shell is scuffed but clean, it has structures sticking out of it’s roof like spikes on the protective shell of an animal. Poles jutting out of the fence-like nest, topped with rags of resting flags.

Rangiku knows what that car means. She wants to turn, swerve violently and aggressively. As aggressively as a person can run away, Rangiku wants to do it, but she is approaching the car too quickly to veer the direction of the van to a safe distance without toppling it. She tightens her grip on the wheel, and from the uncharacteristic calmness of the man in the passenger seat she can tell that he is asleep and she is on her own. Without looking back at Izuru and Orihime, Rangiku prays that the car doesn’t move as she continues to drive in its direction. She does not want to engage with War Boys in a vehicle like this one.

She continues to drive, and the car continues to not move other than to hurtle towards her at the speed which she approaches it. Why is it parked? Why doesn’t Rangiku hear the hooting and hollering and cackling of a predator ready to hunt? Why is it alone?

Rangiku drives by, and she casts a glance that is both anxious and curious out the side window at the car. Four shapes sit in the sand, in the sliver of shadow the car casts against a setting sun. One shape glints of metal, lying down like a wounded animal. A motorbike, she thinks.

The other three shapes are definitely people. Are definitely dressed for battle, she sees the two War Boys with their faces painted white as bone and smeared with black grease. Their bare chests and backs covered only in paint and scars for protection, with tools and things on cords dangling from their hips and necks. And the other shape-

The las shape is small, and bundled in fabrics. It makes Rangiku feel even warmer just looking at them, imagining the pools of sweat under her armpits and between the folds of her belly covering her whole body. But the sun doesn’t touch their skin. It glares harshly against the goggles on the figures covered head, the goggles that stare right at her.

Rangiku feels a different kind of sweat break her skin, cold and clammy. It is anything but relief. She turns her eyes back towards the road and continues driving. Just breathing and driving.

 

* * *

 

Once Rangiku has driven them through the mouth of the canyon, and the endless sky is eclipsed by cliff walls, Rangiku stops the car so they can refuel. It feels much safer to do so nested into some obscure crack of the earth than out in the open.

Izuru and Orihime slide out of the back seat of the car, familiar with the drill. Orihime will fill the tank and Izuru will check the car for damages or potential problem areas. Rangiku glances over at the man, observes the back of his head facing her. His chest rises and falls deeply, dangerously, with his shoulders still tense. A deep, low snore escapes him and Rangiku decides to leave him be. There is something sweet about the moment.

“What did you think about those people back there?” Orihime asks, dipping the container of guzzoline into the tank like she was holding a baby in her arms.

With a swing of a wiry arm Izuru bangs sand out of the truck with a wrench, and Rangiku hopes the racket doesn’t wake the man. An firestorm tearing this desert apart wouldn’t wake the man. “Car probably broke down.” A completely normal, pessimistic thing to expect.

Orihime glances up, and her eyes land on Rangiku circling around the side of the truck. “Should we go back? They might need help.” She pops the cap back on the container, carefully and tightly. Can’t waste a single drop. “They might help us.”

Rangiku shakes her head. When has a War Boy been known to be helpful to anybody, even a dead or dying one? “I’m sure they can take care of themselves. We’re just passing through.”

Izuru’s face is indecipherable, his scarf pulled down low over his eyes. His fingers wrapped in bandages disappear under the truck’s chassis. “The last stop we made, they said there would be another oasis in this direction in five days time. It’s been three days.” The unspoken ‘Do you believe that?’ hits her through his tone.

Rangiku leans her hip against the side door and it burns. “We’re okay on resources for that long. We just need to be careful.” They’re always careful.

“What if they were wrong?”

“We’ll keep on driving until we find something.” Rangiku pushes hair and sweat out of her eyes. “There’s always something in every direction.” If they can go far enough to find it. “Finish up and come take a water break.”

Rangiku stomps back around to the driver’s seat. The door opens like a hot and dry mouth and Rangiku catches a glimpse or herself in the sideview mirror. Sunburnt face, skin peeling off her nose and her ears. Freckles on her cheeks like animal spots. Yellow on her teeth. Dirt and grease mixed with sweat smeared across every inch of her, making her gray. But her eyes are still blue, they’re still alert. Still alive, and so is she. That’s enough reason to keep going.

In the mirror’s image, a shadow moves behind Rangiku’s head. Something disturbs the sanctity of the walls of the cliff. Something revs it’s engine.

In moments of fear, something recoils inside of her. A flash of teeth, an unsheathing of claws as if she were a much bigger, stronger animal than she is. That animal recoils right now. In the corner of the mirror, Rangiku’s face peels into a snarl. “Get inside _now_!”

Izuru and Orihime both go pale, Orihime with concern and Izuru with oncoming dread, but they comply in record time while Rangiku stomps on the breaks as if the force behind her foot will send them shooting across the desert faster. The engine groans and roars as the car pushes off the earth, starting up and wobbling before it kicks traction off of the sand.

They lurch forward like a sudden drop as the get going, Rangiku’s body shaking against her stiff arms attached to the wheel. The man’s head strikes against the back of the car seat, and that definitely wakes him up.

Izuru is the one who looks behind them, over the water tank and out the back window. “Bikes.” He says. Rangiku thinks about those bodies in the sand, motorcycle in the dune like a carcass, but then he adds. “Rock riders. Four of them and catching up.”

Dry, cracked lips peel back over Rangiku’s yellow canines. That’s a small group for a gang, but that makes them harder to notice. Rangiku drove them right into their lair, just because she was afraid of the strangers sitting outside. Foolish. Irresponsible. Her fingers squeeze the clutch like a throat. “Hang on.”

The man stands up on his knee. His shoulders are huge and stiff, and even in the van when he tries to get up his head has to bend around the roof. “Gimme a weapon.”

“No!” Rangiku insists, “I’m going to shake them off.”

The man shakes his head. “Too risky. Give me a gun!” He points towards Orihime and the stained canvas bag at her feet. Most of their weapons are there. Firearms are as valuable as anything else these days.

“Just let me do this!” Rangiku hisses, and she hates that she sounds like a petulant brat but really, this is only giving her more to worry about. The last thing she needs is one of her crew sticking their head out the window to get torn off.

Though she doesn’t risk taking her eyes off the road down the canyon any longer than it takes to glance at the rearview mirror (The can see the Riders easy now, so they really must be hot in pursuit. They’re brown spots gradually growing larger and kicking up dust behind them. They have spikes on their gear that she can can easily visualize ripping through the car in hot, grinding sparks.) Rangiku can picture Orihime’s eyes. Brown and wide and fearful, first on Rangiku, then on the man, then on Rangiku again.

She hears the sound of a gun being loaded, the man almost beaning Rangiku in the head with the butt of a hunting rifle as he opens the passenger door and leans out. “Goddammit!”

Izuru is the one who grabs the man’s coat, trying to keep him steady as three shots go off. The sound of metal scratching against stone as a collision happens in the distance behind them. Izuru’s puff of breath, “Holy shit.” confirms at least one kill.

It’s not enough, though. Orihime yelps a warning before something huge and heavy rams into the back of the van, lifting the back two wheels off the ground and jarring them. The man grips the car seat for security, Rangiku’s clenched teeth ache in her jaw to the pulse of the water tank sloshing in the back. This is no good. It only takes one mistake out here to lose everything. It’s no good.

Then comes the explosion.

In Rangiku’s mirror, it’s a sudden puff of black smoke. It swallows up all three of their remaining chasers, and when the dark cloud settles only two Riders are still on the road. The other is lost to an echo of hooting and hollering. Rangiku hears in a tone of voice she didn’t know to recognize, a tone that’s wild and hungry and maniacal, _“Fang it!”_

The car that Rangiku saw in the sand, no longer sitting still but very much alive and occupied, peels through the smoke and the dust. Its driver is a faint shadow, a glare where the face should be, and in the crow’s nest she sees smoke coming off of hair.

A gangly figure stands on the roof of the car, barely holding on to the structures for balance. His limbs are crooked like a spider to brace for impact. In his other hand he holds a device that looks like a metallic polearm. There’s a pointed edge fixed on the end of it, presumably for ripping through tires or metal or flesh.

“What the fuck?” The man observes. The last two Rock Riders seem to agree, beginning to slow down and veer. Apparently this hunt just got too complicated for them. War Boys are disasters waiting to happen.

They don’t get the choice, though. The War Boys’ car is too close to ignore. The Boy in the crow’s nest twirls his weapon in his arms, catching the sun harshly before swinging it sideways and sending a Rider straight into the canyon wall. Rangiku would cringe if they hadn't been gearing to run them down a moment earlier.

That leaves one Rock Rider still caught between them. And then- and then Rangiku doesn’t know what will happen. It wouldn’t make sense for the War Boys’ to let them go, right? Maybe, if Rangiku is really lucky, they’ll kill each other.

A dark shadow zips out from behind the War Boys’, smaller and faster and gliding over the earth like a bird of prey, and Rangiku crosses that possibility off the list.

The cloaked figure’s bike flies like the shadow of an airborne animal. They cross the distance between car and motorcycle effortlessly. The Rock Rider tries to swerve to avoid or to shake them off, but every winding movement just boxes them in more. The mysterious biker just saddles up next to them, efficient and machine-like. Neck and neck as if neither of them were moving at all.

One small arm reaches out- surprisingly small. Rangiku squints, and can’t figure the owner of that hand to be anything other that petite, and bears a small pistol. They release a bullet from a chamber. Not ‘firing’ the shot, but releasing, like it’s a passive action. Like the Rock Rider’s head and the bullet from that pistol were tied by fate, and the Rider falls from his bike like dead weight.

Rangiku’s breath is still in her throat, and she tries to see the biker’s face in her mirror. All she sees is the scarf obscuring her view, and heavy goggles over the eyes. A patchwork of sun-bleached colors and cloths swaddled around them like a shield, the ragged ghost speeds up to pass them.

The man closes the car door, sitting on his seat roughly. Rangiku can only guess he’s as concerned as she is, but his hand slaps the dashboard with fire. “What are you waiting for? Go!” His yell sounds insistent, almost pleading. But Rangiku is already slowing down. They can’t outrun this.

The Ragged Ghost drives a good ways ahead of them before turning to a sharp halt. Their bike stops perpendicular to the narrow rock walls, a clear barrier, and the rider stands up with a gun in each hand. Rangiku could keep driving. Run over them and the bike and maybe, just maybe, still manage to shake off the War Boys, but the Ghost doesn’t appear to be worried. Even from a distance, Rangiku ends up staring down the barrel of the gun used to kill the Rock Rider, pointed straight and true in the direction of the space between her eyes.

Rangiku slows to a stop. The car around her body feels claustrophobic, and tight, like a cage.

 

* * *

 

Orihime’s arm is looped around Rangiku’s elbow. She would mind- she hasn’t known the girl very long, it’s always just been her and Izuru- but she’s foolishly fond of Orihime, and the comfort isn’t unwelcome. Orihime’s other hand is held to her mouth, biting her nails.

Those guns are no longer aimed in her direction, but Rangiku has no doubt they’re still dangerous. The Ragged Ghost has one pistol in her hand and the other at their hip, they pry open the back of the van to observe all of the group’s earthly possessions. Rangiku thinks she catches their eyes hovering on the water tank.

The War Boys’ car winds down the road towards them. The two men had used a hook on the back of their bumper, and the hook held nets with which they scooped up the wreckage that had once been the Rock Riders. Rangiku sees one net dragging the wrecked motorcycles, and one carrying the wrecked bodies.

By and behind Rangiku’s feet, she knows Izuru is sitting in the sand. Against the canyon wall, Rangiku knows the man is thinking the same thing she is. That even if they were able to take out the Ghost, there’s no way the War Boys wouldn’t run them down. It would be a mistake to count on honor among thieves.

Before the car even stops moving, the War Boy in the crow’s nest hops down onto the hood and takes a running jump into the sand in a black and white blur of gangly but surprisingly coordinated limbs. The closer he gets, the more Rangiku can make him out clearly. White paint, black stripes across his face and body and arms like a poisonous animal. Long hair that might have been red if it was ever clean but looked nearly brown, tied back into a tight braid to keep away from his gruesome, drawn-on face.

“We got parts for the bike.” She hears him say, and his voice is like a dry, toothy grinding sound. He is so tall and the Ghost is so small, it’s almost comical the way he has to lean down to address them. “And two blood bags for Shuu an’ me. The other two were banged up too bad, barely any juice in ‘em, but we’ll need time t’ test that they’re compatible.”

Blood bags. Rangiku’s lip twitches. Blood for what?

The Ragged Ghost nods, using a small free hand that isn’t holding a loaded gun to pull back the scarf and goggles. Short, tousled hair falls out. A shockingly young face with shockingly big, dark eyes squints at the surroundings like that face isn’t used to direct sunlight.

The young woman stalks up to Rangiku and her group, still wrapped in her patchwork shawl, still looking like desert bird.

Rangiku isn’t sure she’s still as afraid of this girl, who looks like she has to be Rangiku’s junior by at least a handful of years, but she’s far from happy.

“You are going to keep going West.” The Ghost points to the exit of the canyon. The eloquence of her voice surprises Ra giku. The force of her words surprise Rangiku, too. “You are going to keep driving until nightfall. If you are pursued, you keep driving. If you are hit, you keep driving. When the sun sets, you will stop driving and will not drive again until daybreak. Watch for my signals.”

A familiar sensation Rangiku hasn’t felt in awhile crawls into the pit of her stomach. She thinks it’s anger. No, indignity. Now she knows why they’re still alive. Their car is bait for the lesser carnivores.

“We will be taking portions of your food and water. Adjust your rations appropriately.” The Ghost holsters her weapons, giving Rangiku the smuggest, most wry smile she has seen on any creature. Like a thin crack in the broken desert earth. “Should be sufficient payment for keeping you safe, no?”

“‘Hostage’, you mean.” The man growls, and when Rangiku turns back to look at him she sees his glare. Not hateful but obstinate, she thinks. The look of someone who only too familiar to getting stomped on in this sort of fashion. The War Boy saddles back up to the Ghost’s side as if to defend his leader at any moment.

The Ghost’s face falls back into smoothness, no expression to be found. She doesn’t even draw her guns, and Rangiku finds herself oddly disappointed. This woman doesn’t consider any of their party to be a threat, not even the biggest and most stubborn of them.

But that’s good, Rangiku tells herself. Better to be underestimated. Much Safer.

“If you prefer,” The strange young woman offers, and her cloak moves aside for her to put hands on hips. “We can take your car and be on our way. You would be dead anyways if it wasn’t for us. How long does your group expect they can survive out here in-”

A thumb is jabbed towards the van, so corroded with rust and dirt it’s practically a shell. At one time it must have been white, but now the outer frame looks much closer red. Like old blood.

“This way we have a working relationship. You live longer and maybe even better than before. Of course,” She shrugs, and this time she does put a hand on one of her holsters. A casual gesture, and all it takes for Rangiku to imagine fresh blood on the sand. Not even a fatal shot. One untreated wound could kill them slowly and painfully. “It wasn’t my intention to give you much of a choice.”

In the car, the other War Boy honks the corn. The resounded, high-pitched _beep-beep_ carves through the tension inappropriately, and Rangiku figures they’re running out of time to be compliant. Orihime’s hands squeeze Rangiku’s bicep, and she can only hope the girl trusts her enough to know what she’s doing.

“Alright, deal.” Rangiku says, even though it wasn’t actually a barter being made. She claps her hands together with a smile that she hopes is earnest and complying. “West, you said? Not that it matters, since we didn’t have anywhere else to be. C’mon, Izuru!”

He looks startled as she pulls him to his feet, shoulders high and tensed together. Izuru probably already knows she’s going to do something stupid in a desperate bid for their freedom, but as of yet he has nothing to worry about. Rangiku marches Orihime and Izuru towards the car with each one of them in each of her arms like an unwieldy parade.

“I’ll dri-”

“I’ll drive.” The man says, stomping past Rangiku and to the driver’s seat. Fair enough. Her hands have been cramping from clenching the wheel at that earlier incident. The four of them fold into the car, and Rangiku doesn’t need to look behind her to know the Ragged Ghost’s eyes are fixed on them. Watching and waiting.

Then the van fights the ground for friction and manages a meandering start back down the road, then Rangiku looks back. And sure enough, off in the distance, one blocky shape of the War Boys, and one smaller dot of the ghost.

And nothing in front of them but the endless valley of danger. Potential predators and potential prey. Rangiku manages a sigh of relief once it feels they’ve been driving long enough.

The man’s hands are fists around the steering wheel, eyes not leaving the road for her or anything else. “You got a plan?”

Rangiku’s back and shoulders press flat against the threadbare and peeling seat cushion. A fraying anchor for her thoughts. “Nope.”  
  
There can’t be enough hours between now and nightfall.


	2. Chapter 2

Who killed the world?

Those words painted Rangiku’s childhood. Screamed as war cries, or whispered like prayers, or wept with anguish. Sometimes people just said them to sound philosophical and deep.

Rangiku didn’t think about it in those terms for many years, imagining the world as a place that could be alive or dead. That’s not strange at all, as children rarely do think about death. But for her, it was different. Special. There were still plants around when she was little.

Before the swamps turned stale brown and the water was more pollution than liquid, there was green. Faint little things, tiny leaves of pale jade standing atop white stalks. Rangiku could pinch them between her chubby, child fingers while standing ankle-deep in mud and gunk. There was hardly enough foliage to survive off of, and water needed to be boiled ten-fold before they could drink it. But still, it was there. You could hold it. Touch it. Trust that it came from the earth itself, looking up at dark clouds and knowing in some inexplicably human part of your body that life would keep on.

Until one day it didn’t. Until one day, Rangiku had nothing but lying on piles of sand and salt and trying her very best to describe what it felt like to Izuru, who was only a few years too young to recall as much vivid detail as she could.

Izuru humored her indefinitely. He was there for her even when he didn’t know it, smiling his small and rare smiles when Rangiku painted a mental picture of rainclouds via big swooping hand gestures. Izuru was beautiful to her, whether they were children playing in the barren fields that faintly hoped to one day hold green again, or traveling across the continent in a metal box with their heads down while strangers shot at them.

“If you could find somewhere for us to live,” Izuru asked her one day, while Orihime was helping the man fret over their engine. It needed to cool down, but to the man that was reason enough to complain. “As in, somewhere we could live permanently without worrying about supplies or getting attacked, would you want us all to stay there and grow old together?”

Rangiku beamed at the question, obviously and smugly. “Of course! That’s the whole reason we’re doing this. You think we’re out here for the precious memories?”

Izuru snorted in return, averting his eyes with a smirk. “I guess.” When his face was turned away, however, Rangiku could hear the smile slip off of him. “We aren’t going to find a place like that, though. It’s probably going to be like this forever. Until we get old. Probably sooner.”

Probably sooner.

“I don’t mind it, though.” He adds. And Rangiku thinks this is his way of letting her know he doesn’t mind if he dies out here. Or that it would technically be her fault.

Also when she was little, adults told her about what sunsets were like many years ago. They said that they were beautiful, creating huge swatches of pink and orange and purple across the sky. Colors that Rangiku hasn’t even seen in years. But over time, smog clouded up the air indefinitely, even when you couldn’t see it. Rangiku doesn’t remember a sunset that didn’t scream down at her in vibrant, fatal red.

It had been a few days, and this was how they did things down. Rangiku gnaws at her nails, keeping her eyes on the road. Orihime’s fingers curling around the seat cushion as she looks back through the rear window. “They’re still back there.”

Of course they are, Rangiku thinks. Since she had met the Ragged Ghost and her War Boys, they hadn’t let the van out of their sights.

The further they drove out in these parts, the more common attacks seemed to be. Every day, bandits would appear on their tail. Every day, they’d get torn to shreds, until the sounds of fire crackling and cars crashing became a familiar, distant buzz in Rangiku’s ears. Like the drumming of flies.

When the sun had disappeared beneath the dunes completely and the afterburn dulled to a healing pink, the man pulls the car to a slow stop. If they didn’t stop quickly enough, the Ghost would just drive ahead of them and create a carrier with her body. Rangiku wondered if she really did intend to let them run her over if they ever refused to comply. Part of her was curious to find out.

When the car grinds to a halt, Orihime is the first one to slide out and open up the back. There was hardly an organized member in the group, but out of all of them she seemed to concern herself with supplies most efficiently. Rangiku was close behind to keep at eye on her back. Orihime’s coat was fraying at the shoulder very badly. Her hair was hopelessly tangled. Rangiku really wishes Orihime would let her cut it with her pocket knife, but the girl always refused her. Rangiku’s palm ran down over her own neck, and she soaked in weightless feeling of not having hot, heavy hair dragging down her shoulders anymore.

The Ragged Ghost pulls her bike up, dropping it to lie in the sand and brazenly walk up to the van. She brazenly ignores the glares from Rangiku and Izuru and the man and, brazenly still, leans her head under the faucet of the water tank and lapped up their well-conserved supply. Every time, Rangiku wants to stomp on her foot, but instead she pretended she didn’t worry about the extremely real possibility of dying of dehydration. Hey, there were worse ways to go. She even heard you hallucinated before you died. That was pretty cool and all. So no biggie.

“We were supposed to find an oasis by now.” Orihime points out, to both Rangiku but also the Ghost. “Is it possible we’re just behind by a day because of all the stops?”

“Seems likely.” Rangiku’s eyes slide over to the Ghost, who unwinds her goggles and scarf to run her fingers through dusty hair.

“The stops are necessary.” The Ghost stubbornly insists, not looking at either of them. “As is this one. My information said we can find a community if we keep in this direction. We may be able to barter for resources.”

“Or you could just. You know. Kill them all, since that’s what you do to most people you’ve met.” Rangiku suggests, first as a joke and then she considers it seriously. “Hm.”

The War Boys park next to them, dragging around their catch of the day. Often, they’ll take some pieces of wrecked vehicle and stow it in the van for later use. The van which, Rangiku will just say right now, reeks bad enough from the stench of living bodies without the smell of burning rubber and steaming metal wafting from the back. She sees both of the Boys, the one who drives and the one who attacks- she guesses that’s a part of their rank or specific skillset, because she never seems either of them deviate from those roles.

She sees the one with the stripes like thunder bolts who attacks, and also the driving one. The driving one has paint like a skull over his face, which is partially obscured by his dark, reflective driving goggles. When Rangiku sees him take them off, she remembers not to cringe at the brutal scars on the right side of his face, dragging down from his forehead to his chin like winding tire tracks. It honestly looks like someone tried to run him over.

The driver runs fingers through his shaggy, black hair, only sometimes looking at her. Rangiku wonders how he drives so well with one eye. With both the Boys, if Rangiku looks close at their eyes she can see blotches of yellow discoloration ringed around the irises.

Rangiku watches their routine. Whoever their party has collectively killed that day gets hung upside down from the long rafters on top of the car, corpses tied by their ankles and tubes jabbed in their necks. The Boy with the stripes prick the bodies with bulky device comprised of two needles at the end of a black box, while the Boy with the scars sorts through the destroyed vehicles. Sometimes Izuru will slip out of the van and help him. There isn’t much else to do on these stops.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” He asks. He still wears his hood pulled down around these strange men, but his fingers are quick to peel apart metal and wire bits.

“Anything.” The War Boy replies. He holds up a twisted steering wheel with the remains of a human hand still attached to it. Caught tight around the wrist and ripped clean off, it seemed. He observes it in his large and dusty hands, then walks over to his car and sticks it on the front like a hood ornament. Rangiku has to commend his sense of style.

The War Boy with the stripes finishes analyzing the bodies with his device. Sometimes he makes a victorious, barking sound, throwing his fist in the air. Most of the time, he curses and squints at the machine with venemous disappointment. If he’s happy, he and the other Boy will hook themselves up with those tubes to the body and drain all of their blood into themselves, like mosquitoes or leeches.

This time, he is not happy. This time a huge palm slaps the device while he hisses “Shit!” His body twists towards the girls, and the thinness of him is exposed. On his waist, Rangiku can see scars and patterns of car parts.

“Hey Rukia,” He calls, waving her over. “We gotta problem!”

‘ _Rukia_ ’, Rangiku looks at the Ghost and realizes it’s the first time she’s heard that person’s name. Behind sealed lips, she tastes the name on her tongue. It rolls smoothly and crunches crisply between her teeth.

The dark-haired woman, the Ghost called Rukia, exhales what could very well be a sigh of exasperation. Truly, a bandit’s job is never done, and her boots leave soft imprints on the sand.

“So,” Rangiku tucks her thumbs into her clunky belt, watching Rukia skulk across the ground. “The mysterious leader does have an identity.”

Orihime’s coat slides off of her arms, revealing bare and freckled shoulders, as to remove the weight when she leans in to the van over boxes upon boxes of supplies. One benefit of stopping in the evening is they don’t need to wear as much to protect themselves from the sun. “Rukia? Of course she does. She told me her name the first day we met.”

That makes Rangiku blink, suddenly feeling a bit foolish. Of course Orihime out of all of them would actually get this person to warm up to her. “Oh.” She scratches her cheek with chewed-up nails. “I don’t suppose she mentioned anything else, like where we’re supposed to be going.”

“No.” Orihime’s hand reveals two small packages of food portions, military surplus style. They’re flavorless, dry, and never spoil in the sun. Rangiku loathes them, but it’s a familiar and good loathing. Food is food. She takes the package Orihime presses into her hands without complaint. “I don’t think we’re really ‘going’ anywhere in particular, anyways. We’re just- passing through.”

Yeah, Rangiku can see that. All she’s done since she left the swamp is pass through.

“Why us, though?” Rangiku tore the plastic with her teeth and tosses the trash onto the ground. There’s nothing alive around for miles, and environmental conservation is a practice mostly unheard of in these times. “Why bait? Why _them_?”

Rangiku gestures towards the Rukia and the War Boy now fussing over the device, and the War Boy still tearing through junk with Izuru.

“Maybe it’s convenient. Maybe there’s strength in numbers.” Orihime shrugged, and her portion disappears in quick nibbles. “People who’re good leaders aren’t always good on their own."

“Yeah? How’d you figure?”

Orihime blushes, red like the dying sunset glowing in her cheeks. “Well… you’re a good leader, Rangiku. No offense.”

Rangiku’s not sure how to process that, if she should be offended or flattered. “None taken.” It’s not like she’s their leader.

The desert is blue darkness. She hates these long pauses, where their troop doesn’t move forward until daybreak. In the old days, she could switch off between her and the man. He would drive most of the time, and catch some shut-eye while she took over. Rangiku’s brain scans over all the miles they could have sped through by now.

Circling around to the driver’s side, there he is. The man’s broad shoulders seem to take up the entire width of the car. With eyes shut he appears to be asleep, but the way arms are crossed over his chest and dark spots sit under his eyes, he makes even sleeping look vaguely painful.

Rangiku knocks on the door and his eyes fly open. Clearly not as asleep as she thought this time. “Aren’tcha gonna stretch your legs?”

The man’s eyes hover on her, finding her in the darkness. Rangiku really should be more worried that their best driver has to squint at everything. Then he mumbles something like “In a minute.”

Rangiku figures that’s fair enough, leaning her thigh against the warm metal of the van. It’s not like they’re in a rush to get anywhere.

She thinks, and then taps her fist against the door again. That’s probably annoying. She doesn’t care. “Hey?”

“Yeah?” The man answers back. When he looks up at her like he does now, he almost looks trusting.

“What’s your name?”

She’d have a hard time telling that he even heard. His face is blank, like the question is still working its way through his brain. Maybe he’s trying to figure out why she asks. Maybe it’s been so long since anyone asked him, he doesn’t even know. “Does it matter?”

“No.” Rangiku tucks one ankle behind her other foot, getting comfortable in case he should resist.

“Kensei Muguruma.” He says, and it falls from his teeth like a bullet fired. He sure remembers who he is, alright. Rangiku takes a minute to be impressed he even has a family name. How old even is this guy?

Rangiku feels like she should have something charming to say here, but that feels superfluous even for her. It’s just a dude’s name. It’s not special, even if it was overdue. “Cool.”

“Hm.” Kensei grunts. A thick-fingered, blistered hands move to adjust the sideview mirror. It it’s reflection, Rangiku can see a flash of Rukia, the swatches of many colors wrapped around her. The way the bare skin of her small hands leave the comfort of the cloth, revealing her human shape.

“Are you still plannin’ on doing something stupid?”

“Specify, please?”

“I mean do you wanna shake these guys off or not?”

Rangiku swallows a dry nothing in her throat. “We’re slower, but we’re not running out of supplies any time sooner. We’re safer, too, as contradictory as that is. I’m not saying if they crashed an’ burned that I’d drive back for them, but-” Was that too harsh? The line between harsh and not-harsh was a fuzzy one in these situations. “What about you? I thought you preferred your long stretches of silence and solitude.”

Kensei’s lips twist. It’s far from a smile, but it’s definitely not a scowl. “I didn’t ask t’ pick any of you up in the first place.”

She has to admit that’s fair, too.

 

* * *

 

 

Rangiku doesn’t know much about War Boys. She knows what everybody else knows, though, which is fortunate because everyone knows quite a bit.

They live in the Citadel. They worship their Immortan like a god and dedicate their lives to his dictatorship over all his territories. They defend his stronghold, they live in the stone walls of his palace. They go to war all day with rival clans and spend all night working on cars, breathing in the harsh chemicals and toxic exhaust.

Their names, she learns, are Renji and Shuuhei. When Rangiku observes closer, gradually closer, she notices that scars and paint aren’t the only thing marring their skin. Shuuhei has a particularly noticeable tumor over his kidney that is about the diameter of Rangiku’s index finger from her nail to her knuckle, that bulges out of his skin like it’s trying to escape him. Occasionally, Renji vomits bile and blood, bent over into two pieces with his hands braced on his knees while Shuuhei or Rukia rub his back.

They are dying. Rangiku is dying, too, as is everyone else, but at a much slower rate. These War Boys are dying much faster.

Legends about War Boys say almost nothing about women, unless it is to detail their abduction and imprisonment. They especially are quiet about small, gun-wielding women on motorcycles who give forceful orders and have stern, powerful frowns. Rangiku becomes familiar to the sound of Rukia emptying her weapon into another rider. The way that the sun glints off of her all white and blinding in Rangiku’s side view mirror. It’s almost reassuring to have someone who will unquestionably murder everyone who comes within a hundred feet of you. Rangiku is vaguely aware that it shouldn’t feel so.

Out of all of them, Rukia gets along with Orihime the best. This surprises no one, because everyone loves Orihime. Even Kensei, sour face and all, can’t say no to her. She is too important.

Still, it strikes Rangiku as funny during one of their stops to see Orihime and Rukia laying out in the sand with their forms half-sunk in as if they were lying on soft and fluffy clouds instead of the course ashes of the earth. Rukia’s patchwork, that she is so rarely without, is pillowed under their heads, and Rangiku can truly see how small the other woman is now.

Her underclothing is tight around her body, to grant her more movement under the huge shape of her outwear. Rangiku’s eyes see a body grown gangly and strong from survival. The girl’s ankle is crossed over her propped-up knee, and her legs look powerful from years of motorcycle riding and running. Lots of running.

Rangiku wonders what they talk about. If Orihime has learned her story yet, or been too kind to insist. She wonders how much Rukia knows about them.

Rukia’s dark eyes roll over to Rangiku in the middle of Rangiku’s staring, and she decided not to wonder further.

 

* * *

 

A few days pass, the sun rises and falls, the crew is beginning to run low on water and the van is heavy with the dismembered corpses of enemy vehicles. They sit in the backseat like tombstones, rattling every which way and becoming convenient armrests for Izuru and Orihime in the back when they want to lean over and signal at the War Boys and Rukia. Orihime plays a game called “Sweet and Sour” where she waves out the back window. Usually, Renji waves back while Shuuhei is driving, and this makes him “sweet”. Rukia has her hands busy steering her bike, but technically since she doesn’t wave back this makes her “less sweet” in Orihime’s judgement.

And it’s after a number of multiple (and completely avoidable) delays that it finally rolls into view, one black speck that grows into a black, low-set brick and sitting against the contours of the sand. The outpost sinks like it is slowly being swallowed by the earth.

From a distance, Rangiku can see a fence made of barbed wire and propped-up bumpers. She bets they didn’t collect all those car parts on donation. The building is a simple and unassuming rectangle with boarded-up windows and a sloping sign over the door that says Gas-N-Go. If Rangiku were an expert on pre-dystopian culture she would know this was probably a gas station and convenience store. But she isn’t, so to her it just looks like any standard trading outpost.

Kensei brings them to a grinding halt as the armed guards by the entrance become visible. Huge and burly men, with covered faces and large bludgeoning instruments. One of them braces a stop sign on his shoulder like a bat. There are long tubes fixed to the roof of the Gas-N-Go that Rangiku can only assume are canons. Trading posts like this are one of the few glimmers of civilization left in this world. They’re imperative to survival and blasting away raiders is a small price to pay.

That also means that Rukia and the guys aren’t gonna be able to knock it down like they’d pick off any handful of vehicles. Some of them are going to have to go inside.

The hum of Rukia’s motorcycle breathes in Rangiku’s ears as the girl pulls up next to the van on the passenger's side. Not a moment later, the back of the van opens up to Renji and Shuuhei’s somberly painted faces, immediately grabbing their payload and tossing it onto a spare severed car door.

“So…” Rangiku naturally ends up being the one to say it, tearing her eyes off the back where Orihime and Izuru are trying to help in spite of their confusion. She leans halfway out the passenger door. “One of us is gonna go-” She points towards the outpost. “In there.” She points to the pile of junk that Renji is dragging by a rope across the sand. “With that. What if, perchance, they don’t come back out?”

“If you’re worried, don’t be. I’m going in.” Rukia says, scanning over the pile, nudging it with her toe, and apparently avoiding the way Renji starts at this knowledge.

His spine stiffens, and through his guise Rangiku can see the face of someone who is afraid and frustrated and sick. He and Shuuhei are beginning to run out of facepaint, and their real faces are even more eerie in that way. Too pale and thin. “Rukia, no. I’ll go in, you gotta keep an eye on everyone out here. If we lose ya’, we’re pretty fucked.”

As touched as Rangiku is by his concern for his comrade, she considers that to be just a sliver of a slight exaggeration. She and the gang were doing fine before these jokers commandeered them. Well, if you excluded the whole almost getting robbed and/or murdered thing.

But this seems to make perfect sense to Rukia. With a serious face she picks up the rope and fastens it around her shoulder for pulling leverage. “No good. They won’t let in anybody who looks strong enough to start trouble. Luckily, they probably won’t look very hard.”

“Okay, wait-” Kensei, surprisingly, pipes up. He has to lean over Rangiku to see Rukia’s small form out the window. “Yer just gonna walk in there.”

“Yep.”

“With almost everything of value we have.”

“Everything we don’t need.” Rukia gives the make-shift sled an experimental pull across the sand.

“And you think they’re just gonna let you walk out, no problem.”

“That’s the plan.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Hey!” Renji, apparently distracted from his worry for Rukia’s safety for now, faces Kensei with a wall of teeth and a snake-painted snarl. “You see any other stops ‘round here? Any sign fer free food, water, an’ guzzoline? There’s only so much we can rip outta’ vultures and gangs.”

Orihime’s head pops up next to Rangiku’s, her red hair draping over Rangiku’s shoulders and adding to a mounting sense of claustrophobia. “But if she gets killed and they take all our stuff, we’re down all that junk we can trade and we lose Rukia for good. That’s a huge risk to take just to assume these people will be fair!”

“If she doesn’t, we might just run out of rations and fuel anyways.” Izuru’s voice comes from between Rangiku and Kensei’s elbows. “We don’t know when the next place we’ll get supplies is going to turn up.”

“Rukia is the least threatening, appearance-wise, but also has fighting experience so she can take care of herself if something happens.” Shuuhei brings up the rear, wiping grease and oil-coated hands on his pants.

“An’ if she doesn’t, she can signal us for help an’ we’ll be right outside.”

“But-”

“Alright!” Rukia bellows and scowls ahead, beginning to tug the pile of junk towards the building. “Have we all heard from the peanut gallery? Has everyone commented on how they feel about what I’ve already decided I’m gonna do? Great!”

The car door makes uneven contours in the sand, Rukia trudges towards the Gas-N-Go. It’s a long trek between the van and the fence, and as the Sun crawls across the sky Rukia slowly cuts a groove through the dunes while six pairs of eyes watch her back.

It’s dead silent like that for a minute. Sand beats against the windshield and wind plays with Rukia’s cloak like tissue paper as she drifts farther and farther. Beneath that heavy fabric Rangiku continues to catch glimpses of her thin frame. She must be entirely muscle to be that small and pull the weight tied to her torso.

What kind of woman lives like this? Rangiku kicks her feet up on the dashboard, focuses on the way that the sunbeams crawl through the window to make the inside of the van even warmer than the outside. Her nails pressed to her palms, haggard and constantly broken. She bit them down because she hated the feeling of dirt between her nail and her finger and, yeah, nerves. It was mostly nerves.

Orihime sounds- not quite disappointed. Worried. Frustrated by their helplessness. “She’s gonna be okay, right?”

Renji and Shuuhei sit in the back of the open van, their bones move weird under their skin like men older than they are. They don’t say anything, just face their tense backs towards the rest of them.

Rangiku presses the pad of her thumb to her teeth. Yeah, nerves.

 

* * *

 

 

Kensei’s voice disappears into the empty, acrid air behind the trails of dirt Rangiku’s boots kick up. The muscles in her legs are screaming as she plows her way through the sand, it feels like when the swamps were still mildly plentiful, that the dryness was because of a drought and it would pass. But this was the drought to end it all. This was the drought that killed them, was still killing them.

Back when the swamps were still more water than muck by a slim margin, and Rangiku tried swimming. But her legs couldn’t kick through the murky, heavy water all the way. She was just pushing her body without gaining traction. The sand is like that, it’s earth without being solid like mud is water without being clear.

She’d love to just stride over gallantly, overwhelming Rukia with her show of bravery and camaraderie. Surprised to see me? I just thought I’d join you! Couldn’t let you have all the fun! But truthfully by the time she gets even halfway there Rangiku’s lungs are screaming.

Fortunately, Rangiku has the longer pair of legs, so she does manage to catch up. Bent double over, hands on knees, puffing huge, hot breathes while Rukia stares at her like she just dropped off of the moon. “What are you doing?”

“It’s-” Rangiku wheezes one more time before finding her endless composure. “It’s dangerous to go alone. You should have asked me to come with you.”

Behind her goggles, Rukia’s face is sour. “I don’t need your help.” She turns and strides away, lugging the payload behind her. Her feet work the sand laboriously, it seems not even is immune to the toils of the heat and the distance and the gravity.

Rangiku watches, breath regained and determination refired. “I don’t look dangerous.” She says. She gestures towards all of her, the persistent soft curves of her and gentle lines of her face. Beauty was a dangerous thing to be burdened with out here, no matter how Rangiku smeared grease over her skin or allowed scars to tear at her face and body, it never kept predatory eyes far enough away. Just hungry men and their hungry eyes.

“I can help you if you need it. Carry supplies back t’ the van.” Rangiku continues. “The Terrific Twosome back there are gonna be a pain in the ass if you get killed alone.”

Rukia’s glare is only barely indecipherable, between the goggles and the wrapping around her face. All that’s left is huge, dark, eyes that narrow before she turns back ahead. Rukia readjusts the rope over her shoulder, utters a disingenuous “Fine.” And continues trudging along.

Rangiku isn’t sure what she won, exactly, but she likes winning.

They pass the guards with relative ease. They are boulders of men that look them up and down, and even through the glassy glare of their gas masks their necks crane in that way distinctive to men leering. Rangiku and Rukia, however, wrapped in rags and too-tight skin on their bones, don’t look terribly impressive. The groaning of the canons being shifted way above grinds in Rangiku’s ears, and she visualizes a cannon ball being dropped directly into her skull, or maybe one of the guards knocking her head clean off her neck with his yeild sign until Rangiku trudges into the store. The doors open with a dry and cheerless ‘ding’.

Rukia sets off down the aisles, head down and junk-sled scraping painfully on the dirty linoleum floor. Rangiku, herself, has to gawk- her eyes swallow the endless rows, shelves of every kind of wreckage imaginable all packed together and made claustrophobic. Disheveled engine corpses lean onto the floor, old tires hang from the ceiling by rusty chains and hooks, everything related to automobiles and machines imaginable all squirreled away in one hoard. Against the gray and peeling walls and the corroded checker-tile floor, the interior looks some combination of chop-shop and machine mausoleum.

Rangiku’s oversized boots nearly trip over the sled, steadying herself by leaning on a wall of rusty paint cans. Her gaze looks to catch Rukia’s serious glare as she pushes her goggles up over her forehead.

“Do not touch anything.” She doesn’t hiss. Rukia sounds too calm and too stern to hiss, but her face looks like she would be if her dignity allows it. “Most of all, do not take anything.”

Now, Rangiku can admit she’s not exactly slinging around handguns and leaving behind bloody streaks wherever she goes like some people. That doesn’t mean she’s stupid. It also doesn’t mean she suffers punkass little assholes well, and she makes a point of stepping around the garbage sled and striding ahead of Rukia. “You worry too much.”

Her feet drag along the floor, Rangiku gives Rukia her best Deadly Grin when she looks over her shoulder through raggedy blond bangs. “After all, what’s the worst I could do? Recklessly cause a scene to get us both killed in here?” A scab-knuckled hand pets the air directly in front of the shelves, threatening to stroke all the trash for trade in here with the tips of her fingers. “Nah, I’d have to really hate you to do something like that. Good thing I came here to protect you, an’ we’re real good allies by now, right?”

She winks and lets her grin turn wolfish as Rukia bawks at her and drag the payload ahead with bunched up shoulders.

Against the back wall, they approach what looks like a wire mesh cage. Razorwire is strung and woven together from ceiling to floor like spiderwebs, leaving gaps barely big enough to fit a hand through. In the center is the front half of a gutted car, older model, raised up with platforms of cinder blocks under the empty space where there should be wheels.

The dashboard looks like it’s cleared and repurposed to act as a desk. Archaic old books are stacked around, their spines struggling to hold together and pages spilling out of the covers. Behind the wheel is a small man, maybe a boy.

“C-can I help you today?” He sounds chipper, despite his rather desolate surroundings and his own rather sad-looking face. His smile looks like clay, damp and shallow and muddy.

Rukia kicks the sled in front of her. “We want to trade.” She holds up a bent camshaft for example. The kid leans over his dashboard, eyebrows drawn up with perpetual worry.

He sits back down on peeling, fossilized leather. Some lever where the gear shift is supposed to be is pulled, and Rangiku and Rukia have to scramble backwards as the front bumper pops out to reveal some sort of extending tray. “Please place your items inside the compartment so that I can price them and give you your total estimated store credit.”

Rangiku raises an eyebrow at Rukia, silently asking if it’s really okay to just hand their stuff over to a guy with a barrier of deadly sharp metal between them. Rukia looks similarly anxious, but she shrugs and begins to load up the cart. The only other option, it seems, is to leave without supplies, which is no option at all.

This has been a lovely tour, but Rangiku is all too ready to halve the amount of time they need to spend here. “I’m gonna get the stuff we need. Meet you back here for checkout."

Rukia looks up, Rangiku momentarily thinks she’s going to resist. Protest that Rangiku can’t be trusted or something out of her sights. But she just sighs and said. “We need food and water and guzzoline.” Her brows furrow for a moment, biting her lips. “And hypodermic needles, if they have any.”

Rangiku borrows a lopsided wheelbarrow from a pile of garbage, angling it around awkwardly to find consumables. She could have figured they would be all the way in the back, the most valuable merchandise that people would do anything to steal.

She lifts a few containers sealed with plastic and duct tape that slosh around, feeling pretty damn confident that this was water, since the gasoline was in the faded red canisters a few rows down. How much would they need? Who knew when the next stop like this would be. Hell, who knew how much they’d actually be able to haggle for while they were here? It didn’t matter. Rangiku waited for the feeling in her gut to tell her when enough water was enough.

Food came next. Mysterious, large cans under an unlit neon sign that said FOOD & STUFF. She assumed this was either FOOD or STUFF. They rattled when Rangiku shook them. She did manage to find the needles in one dark corner of scrounged-together survival gear and medical surprise. They were sealed and plugged into cotton, looking warped and not entirely clean. Rangiku thinks of the War Boys and frowns. No one in their right mind would use these, but desperate times. And with Rangiku’s luck, maybe a member of their party will get injured and need emergency first aid, and these will suddenly seem a lot more attractive.

By the time Rangiku angles the wheelbarrow back to the counter, it’s heavy and swollen with cargo. She honestly can’t imagine they’ll be allowed to take all of this, but she’s optimistic for once. Maybe all their collective garbage will be worth something this time, and it’ll be nice to have the extra supplies.

Rukia is reading their total exchange for a receipt curling off the desk as the boy punches in numbers into some number-crunching device. The aged plastic sounds crisp and cutting as he slams his fingers into the keys while he chatters. Rukia has her goggles held above her eyes and is squinting fiercely. Few people have mastered reading, numbers aren’t much better. Rangiku can decipher simple words on tattered billboards, but anything more than two syllables is useless to her.

“You ladies came in from the south?” The boy murmurs, surprisingly nonplussed for his shy demeanor. Rukia hums a distant and annoying “Mmhmm.” “A lot of gangs in the south! Ruffian territory, that’s what they say.” “Mm.” “We don’t get a lot from there. Most folks don’t make it past the Bullet Farm.” “Mm. That’s right.”

The flow of this stunning conversation is halted when Rangiku loudly parks the wheelbarrow in front of the desk. “So how much of this can we take out of here?”

Through the net of twisted metal and barbs, the boy leans over his dashboard to eye her selection. His eyes are big, and black, like drops of oil on white sand. When he places his palms down on the dashboard, Rangiku can see that one of them is made of metal and hydraulic pumps.

“Let me ring up your total.” He says, and the metal arm fiddles more with his calculator. “Those guys waiting for you outside are your friends, right? I can see them on the monitor. Nice lookin’ bunch. Don’t care much for War Boys, though.”

Rangiku is about to add something borderline asinine until the boy slams his good fist against the side of the machine and it spits out a spiraling page of a receipt. The pages look like they were hastily scraped together, and he squints at the new numbers over faded print.

“Oh man, how lucky are you guys?” He says, with genuine elation. “It looks like with what you brought in, you ladies just broke perfectly even.”

“Oh? That’s… perfect.” Rukia says, though her voice still sounds cold. She locks eyes with Rangiku. Something is suspicious. Things never go perfect for them. “We’ll be out, then.”

“Sure!” The kid says as Rangiku angles the wheelbarrow towards the door on the opposite side of the room. “Hey, don’t be a stranger!”

Rangiku picks up her pace, not really eager to be around when the other foot drops. Next to her, she hears Rukia’s footfalls increase as well.

“That’s the thing about War Boys, though.” The boy tuts, sounding distant behind them but not distant enough. “A while ago the Citadel sent out messengers to every stop they could reach, ‘bout two rogue Boys who stole a rig and disappeared with a whole load of equipment- led by a roving bandit.”

That’s the cue for Rangiku and Rukia to break into a run. That desert outside those sliding doors couldn’t look any more tantalizing. The pounding of boots against torn linoleum turns into a hasty skid, bits and pieces shedding off of Rangiku’s wheelbarrow as she veers when the two guards from earlier push the doors aside and brace their blunt weapons in their hands.

“Oh shit!” Is about the only phrase Rangiku can think of to appropriately describe this situation. Rukia squeezes her bicep and as one they make a unanimous decision to disappear down an aisle.

They shoot off through the aisle, cramped shelves boxing them in on either side with the sound of the guards heavy footfalls behind them. Something crashes off of the shelves in the near distance behind Rangiku, the sound of one of their pursuers knocking over an entire display of valves to gain on them. This is about the same time that she notices this wheelbarrow is really heavy.

Rukia halts in order to grab another shelf and, using all of the weight in her slight body, throw it down to the floor in the path of their pursuers before scrambling to catch back up to Rangiku’s side.

The boy yells at the guards, still trapped behind his protective safety net. “If the Immortan finds out they were here, he’ll burn this place to the ground!”

About the same time she notices the weight, Rangiku notices that trying to cart around a wheelbarrow full of heavy supplies is actually not ideal for a chase scenario. At the end of the shelf, she turns around and belts at Rukia, “Hang a left!”

The small bandit ducks behind the next row over, Rangiku reaches into her cargo of goodies and grabs the heaviest object that will fit into her hands. It ends up being an extra large can that sloshes around thickly and is four times the size of her fist, and Rangiku arcs her arm back and hurls it as hard as she can. It spirals through the air and makes fantastic direct contact with one of the guard’s skulls, sending him veering into a pile of bent hubcaps.

That leaves one more still charging Rangiku. The eyes of his gas mask flash like car headlights atop his massive body. Rangiku tries to toss more at him, cans and plastic jugs and even scraps of metal car parts bounce off of his chest uselessly. His huge form moves across the floor all too rapidly for comfort and Rangiku struggles to angle the wheelbarrow around for a hasty retreat to- where, exactly? He’s blocking the only exit, she has nowhere else to go but elsewhere in the store. The kid behind the counter is still screaming bloody murder.

The weight of a huge, meaty hand lands roughly on Rangiku’s shoulder, and her limbs want to retract into her body in revulsion from the contact. The wheelbarrow spins onto it’s side as the guard tries to roughly yank her back, and Rangiku feels the shadow of his weapon raised over her head.

She thinks, for one fraction of a second, of what would happen if Rukia didn’t appear on cue. If she ran off to save herself, and Rangiku’s brains ended up splattered across aisle seven. There are worse ways to die, surely, but not many.

Then Rangiku hears the metal squealing of the shelf behind her, the ear-ringing smash of something heavy falling and an also heavy body being smashed underneath it. Rangiku raises her arms above her head to shield herself from debris, and when she looks up it’s to confirm that Rukia is there and she’s safe. She climbs over the shelf on her feet and hands like a rodent while the guard is unmoving beneath her

Her eyes are huge and blue, and electric. Rangiku is already moving before Rukia can even speak, “Let’s go!”

Scavenger instinct has Rangiku picking up everything she can carry, kicking aside the overturned wheelbarrow and shoving contraband down her shirt. It’s only when she has her pockets overflowing that Rukia successfully manages to tug her away. All of that food and supplies left behind. That’s the real tragedy.

They make it to the door and it’s a mad bolt through the heavy sand. Rangiku remembers how long it took to just walk from their meeting point to the door and can already feel her body screaming at her, but they keep sprinting anyways.

In the distance, Rangiku can see the two cars idly perched on top of the dunes and everyone waiting patiently and trying to protect themselves from the sun. Rukia is waving her arms like a madwoman and screaming, “Get my bike! We’re leaving! _Get the bike!_ ”

There’s a cracking boom behind them coming from the trading post, followed by a showering geyser of sand. Rangiku has no idea what they’re firing at them, but it’s probably not small or soft.

She can see Kensei bickering with the van’s engine as the machine growls and sputters to life. The mad scramble of Renji picking up Rukia’s bike off the sand while Shuuhei is already launching the car across the earth and gaining traction.

When they reach the drop-off point, another projectile flies through the air and punches into the van’s hood. The vehicle rocks and wobbles but Kensei’s concentration is holding true. Rukia’s eyes are only on her bike as she practically leaps on. She revs it dangerously, toeing the ground for balance as she finds her center.

The stolen metal and weight Rangiku is still desperately and instinctively holding inside shirt burn against her skin. The blood in her ears squeeze her brain like a fist. Rukia’s eyes fix her’s with a question, and Rangiku feels an answer in a white grin.

She hops on the back of the motorbike, arms wrapped tightly around Rukia’s waist. She does her best to hold on tight and press her body, lumpy with contraband, against the curve of Rukia’s back as the tiny bandit lowers her goggles and takes off across the sand.

Rangiku doesn’t trust the loose sand of the dessert not to blind her, or the terrifying exposure of a vehicle with two wheels and no roof not to knock her flat onto her ass. But when Rangiku is brave enough to raise one arm in front of her face to protect her eyes, she dares to look sideways and see Orihime beaming at her through the window. It occurs to her that she is moving so fast, with the wind and sun on her, and it’s wonderful. Rukia’s body feels solid in front of Rangiku’s, like it’s the only thing that’s solid at this speed.

She has to squeeze her eyes shut again and wrap both arms around the smaller woman’s waist when she feels the road twist and wind underneath them. Rukia swerves violently and Rangiku hears the crash of the canons gradually fading into the wind and the distance.

Without seeing, she tastes relief. She hears Renji whoop off in the distance and the squabbling of Kensei with Orihime and Izuru that lets her know they’re out of danger. She feels her own heartbeat against Rukia’s spine, she smells the sweat-and-salt scent of Rukia’s hair in her face.

She likes the motorbike.

 

* * *

 

 

“You were cool out there, slick.”

They don’t stop for many hours, at which point Rangiku feels like her legs might fall off. However, she dismounts on wobbly knees and has to grin smugly at the confused look Rukia gives her. She probably isn’t used to Rangiku giving a compliment specifically to her before. Rangiku is too full of adrenaline and white teeth to care. “You kind of saved my life and junk.”

Rukia pushes her goggles up on her forehead, making her sweaty bangs stick up weird. She brushes sand off of her clothes and looks down to conceal a- is that a blush on the fearsome bandit? “Don’t mention it. You were pretty useful back there, yourself, so I don’t mind.”

“I got t’ clock a guy in the head with a heavy object.”

“Yeah, good arm.”

“Shame we had to leave so much supplies behind.” Rangiku points out as the other two cars hunker down for the evening to set up camp.

Rukia just hops off her bike and walks it across the ground. “There’ll be other chances. We have strength in numbers.”  
  
Which Rangiku thinks is her way of saying they make an okay team.


End file.
